This invention relates generally to the removal and separation of materials from containers and more particularly to a self cleaning bag breaking machine that allows broken bags to be easily separated from the contents contained inside the bag.
Several limitations exist in present efforts to recycle trash and compost materials such as yard debris. For example, compost materials must be bagged and laid out in front of a residence for pickup. Because yard debris is rather heavy when accumulated together or when wet, the container used for holding the debris must be made from a rather strong material. If the container is made from a biodegradable material, such as paper, the paper must, therefore, be extremely thick to adequately support the heavy yard debris contained inside. Heavy paper bags, however, are expensive and further add to the land fill. In addition, paper bags get wet when exposed to the environment and in turn have a tendency to break when transferred from the lawn of a residence to a refuse truck.
Plastic bags are generally stronger than paper bags and are, therefore, capable of retaining more refuse using less material than a paper bag. However, plastic bags are not quickly biodegradable. Plastic bags are typically shredded to remove the materials contained inside. However, if the plastic bag is used for holding compost, or other recyclable materials, the shredded pieces of the plastic bag will be inter-mixed with the compost materials previously contained inside the plastic bag. Therefore, plastic bags cannot be used for holding compost or other recyclable materials.
For example, systems have been established in many municipalities for recycling recyclable materials such as plastic, glass and aluminum. A major effort involved with the recycling process involves, first, removing the trash and other recyclable materials from the trash bag and then separating out the different recyclable materials removed from the trash bag.
Currently, trash and other recyclable materials are separated by throwing trash bags containing trash and other recyclable materials onto a set of sharp cutting blades. The blades shred the bags into hundreds of tiny pieces so that the contents of the bag fall out of the bag and onto a conveyer. The different recyclable materials are then separated. Slicing plastic or paper bags, however, does not always effectively remove all the contents from the bag. For example, the knives may only slice portions of the bag, essentially turning the bag into a net that still retains many larger objects.
To ensure that the contents of the bag are removed, the cutting blades are designed to completely shred the bag. However, when a trash bag is shredded, the hundreds of tiny pieces are intermingled with the trash and other recyclable materials previously stored inside the bag. Therefore, the task of separating out the different recyclable materials from the bag material becomes more time consuming and costly. In addition, plastic bags are a recyclable resource that cannot be effectively recycled due in major part to the cost involved with gathering the small shredded pieces.
Present debaggers are also easily clogged with plastic bags and additional refuse that attaches around the blades and other cutting apparatus. The debaggers must, therefore, be continuously down and cleaned out reducing system throughput and increasing recycling costs.
A wide variety of materials and sizes of containers are used to store trash and other recyclable materials. For example, trash and other recyclable materials are stored in small plastic grocery bags, paper bags, and in large 30 gallon plastic bags. Debagging equipment designed for processing 30 gallon plastic bags is often not effective in removing materials from smaller grocery bags. For example, smaller bags can slip through the blades of the debagging equipment and remain intact when dropped onto a conveyer. Thus, a debagging system must be readjusted or separate systems used according to the size of the trash bags.
Accordingly, a need remains for a low cost self cleaning debagging machine that can effectively remove materials from a wide variety of trash bag sizes and materials.